The Danger of Ignorance
by Ellynne
Summary: The aliens were desperate to save their people and they thought TJ and Belle could help them do it. But, all things come with a price, and Belle began to suspect this one was higher than she could pay.
1. Chapter 1

**Note:** While this is set in the same, general universe as my other Stargate/Once crossovers, this one is slightly AU. I've had this idea for a while where Belle met the Ursini, but it didn't fit with later developments once the crew knew Rumple wasn't Rush. But, I still had to write it.

 **I.** **Ignorance**

TJ didn't know how she would have made it through the journey on the seed ship without Belle. It had begun to hit her that she might never see her daughter again as the time passed for Carmen Rochelle's feeding and the pain in her breasts grew. Belle, talking to the Ursini named Attis-Anari, had gotten them privacy as she helped TJ deal with it.

"Rum will take care of her," Belle said. "Until we get back. He's got the sheep, now. There'll be milk for her till then."

"You're assuming we'll get back," TJ said.

She'd expected Belle to conjure up a Pollyanna-ish smile and promise her everything would be OK. Maybe she'd even do it well enough TJ would believe her. Instead, her eyes turned bleak. She smiled, but it was grim. "Oh, we'll get back all right," she told TJ. "I know Rum. Believe me. He'll catch up with us. I just feel sorry for the Ursini when he does."

TJ remembered Rush in the infirmary when the Lucians attacked. She hadn't seen what he'd done to the others but she'd heard stories. He'd cut a bloody path fighting to get to Belle. At the time, they'd put it down to something from the Ancients' chair, a power or entity from the ship that had crawled into Rush and let him do that. They'd also assumed—an assumption they'd tested, as far as they were able—the thing inside him was gone.

"You think he'll use the chair again?"

"I think . . . he'll do what he has to in order to get to us."

Belle spent a great deal of time talking to Attis-Anari after that. She told TJ some of it. It made the Ursini seem almost normal, almost human. Almost.

At least, they weren't alien monsters whose plans and goals TJ couldn't begin to guess at. There were still things about their captors that frightened Belle. She could see it in the other woman's eyes, though Belle didn't want to address it directly. She seemed to approach it in other ways, skirting around it, like when they discussed the oddness of Attis-Anari knowing a human language.

"It's strange, don't you think, that they would know Latin?" Belle said. "They've had some contact with Earth—or with some race that's been to Earth. They talk about myths—" She stopped abruptly. It wasn't the first time, but TJ had had enough of it.

"You're keeping secrets," TJ told her. "You think there's something that will upset me? More than being kidnapped by aliens I can't even talk to?"

"Not secrets," Belle said. "Just suspicions. I could be wrong."

"You could be right," TJ countered, getting tired of this.

"Yes," Belle said. "I could. If I am—if we get a chance to escape—any chance at all, I think we should take it."

TJ was about to ask her how she proposed they do that. Steal one of the Ursini sleeper pods and hope someone found them before it was too late? Then, she saw the look in Belle's eyes and wondered if she would say, yes, that's exactly what they should do. "You think it's that bad, what we're going into?" TJ forced a smile, trying to lighten the mood. "I thought Attis-Anari was your one-man fan club. One-Ursini." TJ was still figuring out Ursini body language, but there was no mistaking the _worshipful_ way Attis-Anari looked at Belle.

"He is." There was no humor in Belle's voice, just deadly seriousness. "He's also dying. They . . . did something to him. Downloaded information directly into his mind. It's why he knows Latin and how to steer this ship."

"Ancient technology," TJ breathed. She tried not to think about what kind of people the Ursini were, the kind of people who casually murdered one of their own to complete a mission—or that Attis-Anari seemed to have casually accepted this. She focused on what else this meant. "His people must have something like the chair. Only, they're not Ancients or humans. That's why it kills them."

"Not exactly. Or, I don't think that's what it is. Attis is what they call the download or the—the _thing_ that was put into Anari's mind. That's why he had the double name."

Double names. TJ hadn't noticed that. Belle said it so casually, assuming TJ had noticed it, too. She felt a twinge of jealousy over the gift for languages the other woman had. Back on _Destiny_ , Belle had helped

Of course, the only reason Belle was getting to use this talent was that she was a prisoner, the same as TJ. Her jealousy ebbed. Her feelings of fear and frustration didn't. _Stay calm,_ she reminded herself. _Stay focused. Learn as much as you can about the current situation._ "A 'thing'?" TJ asked. "You know how they do it?"

Belle hesitated. "I'm not sure. I think something was implanted in him. Maybe . . . something organic."

"Bio tech?"

"Maybe." Belle didn't look happy about whatever she was thinking. "Or maybe . . . some kind of symbiont. Or. . . . I don't know. Whatever it is, they're not compatible. It gives Attis-Anari some advantages—they'd be steering blind without him—but it's killing him. Him and the symbiont. Once they're joined, neither one will survive."

"That's why there's only one in this group?"

Belle shook her head. "There were twenty. They're part of a group of one hundred they sent out in sleeper pods—small ships, they sound like they weren't more than lifepods with the passenger in suspended animation. They're just the ones that made it this far."

Unless some of them were hiding, there were seven Ursini on the ship. That meant 93 dead or frozen forever in the darkness of space. "Why? Why did they need this ship so badly?"

"There's a war coming to their world," Belle said. "One they don't think they can win. They don't think the enemy could detect the sleeper pods the way they would their other technology, so they used them to get to this ship."

"It has weapons?" That made sense. _Destiny_ had better weapons than anything they'd run into out here. Or it did on its good days. If the ship actually worked the way it was supposed to, it would be unstoppable.

But, Belle was shaking her head again. "Not weapons. Gates. They're going to try and evacuate as many as they can."

Gates. Whoever the enemy was, the Ursini figured they'd already lost. Everything they'd done—the lives they'd sacrificed just to get this ship—was only a desperate attempt to have retreat.

And they were taking Belle and TJ with them.

"What do they want us for?" A horrible thought struck TJ. "They don't think we can help them, do they? Belle, I barely understand how the light switches on _Destiny_ work. There's no way I could help run a stargate."

"No, it's not that. The Ursini have encountered . . . something that looks human before. Except it's not."

"Ancients?" TJ said. Belle had seemed to think there was another explanation for Attis-Anari knowing Latin. But, if they'd _seen_ something human—or something that looked human—what else could it be? "So, there are Ancients out here?" Ancients, the makers of _Destiny_ and the stargates—the race who _understood_ how to operate the stargates. Did the Ursini know how to contact them? Did they hope they'd help them escape their enemy?

And, if there were Ancients. . . . "Could they get us home?" TJ asked.

Belle looked pale and worried. She showed no sign of the hope TJ felt bubbling up inside her. "I . . . don't know. They looked like us. But, they're not. Attis-Anari says there's one on their world. She's very old and very weak. But, she understands the gates."

"An Ancient. She has to be. Belle, why didn't you tell me this?"

"Because, whoever she is, she made changes to Attis-Anari knowing they'd kill him. And Attis-Anari doesn't seem to think she'll have any problem with him kidnapping us. And what Attis-Anari says about _what_ she did to him. . . . It doesn't sound like Ancient tech."

"You said he's trying to save his people. If he thinks we're Ancients, he must believe we can help him." And that could get ugly, TJ thought. People didn't like gods who failed them.

"I don't know," Belle said. "There were other races who looked like humans. Just . . . be careful. And be ready to run."

X

It was only a suspicion, Belle told herself. As one of Earth's writers said, "One's own belief—even so strong as to amount to knowledge—is not the same as proof." And the belief she had growing in her every time she spoke to Attis-Anari was close to nightmare.

There was only one thing she could do. Though she knew Rum would never forgive her for it, she took off her ring.

"Here," she told TJ. They were nearing the Ursini homeworld. Belle didn't have any more time to waste. "You have to wear this."

TJ stared at it, bemused. "Rings mean something to the Ursinis?"

"I have no idea. But, this ring—" There was no way to explain the magical protections Rum had put in it, so she didn't try. "It has some alien tech in it. It's a long story. My late husband collected odd things. This stone had stories told about it." Stories told to her by Rumplestiltskin, the Dark One. No need to tell TJ that, either. "They said it was magic, that it could keep the wearer safe. There have been some . . . strange things that happened to me. Or that didn't happen to me when they happened to everyone else. I let Rush take a look at it. He says it's not from Earth." And no reason to tell TJ it was from the Enchanted Forest, either. "He knows how to trace it. If we get separated, he'll find you if you have this on. Don't argue with me," she said before TJ had her mouth more than half-open to protect. "You have a baby back on _Destiny_ who needs you. You have to get back to her."

Belle thought of Rum and everything he'd done to get back to Bae. He would understand why she had to do this. She knew he would. It just wouldn't make him any happier.

TJ didn't argue. Maybe she accepted Belle's arguments or maybe she saw it was no use—or maybe it was that they were coming out of FTL and there was no more time for arguments. They had reached the Ursini homeworld at last.


	2. Knowledge

Cybele, the Great Mother.

Belle had read about her. A little. Nothing much. A goddess of this world—reality—whatever she should call it. Worshipped by the Romans who had likely borrowed her from . . . was it Asia Minor? It meant she wasn't Greek and there weren't lots of myths written down about her, the way there were about their other gods.

Attis-Anari had been surprised Belle knew Latin. He thought of it as a minor language spoken by a minor people, a small tribe from somewhere north and west of the lands where the Great Mother had held power. He'd never heard of Rome.

Belle wanted to believe she was wrong. She'd laid out what she'd learned from Attis-Anari, giving TJ everything she was certain of. Then, she'd outlined some of her suspicions. TJ didn't see it. Same data, different conclusions. She thought Ancients, and maybe that was right. Maybe Belle was seeing shadows in a room full of light.

She had to wonder when she first saw the old woman. When the Ursini ushered them into the room where Cybele waited, her faith in her own conclusions waivered for just a moment.

Cybele was ancient (in the more regular sense of the word). If Belle had met her on Earth, she would have believed anyone telling her the woman was over a hundred years old—over two hundred. There were machines and monitors hooked up to her and her wheeled chair. Very little of it resembled the few bits of medical machinery Belle was familiar with, but she recognized the slow, steady beeping that measured each beat of her heart. It was hard to connect this woman with the stories Belle knew.

"Please," the old woman said, her voice a thin whisper. "Sit down." She gestured to chairs. Human-sized chairs. They looked antique. Ones Cybele had used in younger, healthier days?

Belle translated for TJ. The two women sat. Ursini brought in small bowls with tea—real tea, or something much closer to tea than the stewed leaves _Destiny_ sometimes had—and of plate of dumpling-like pastries. They were purplish-black with a bland flavor. Their interior had a greenish paste that tasted a bit like cashews.

"The food is safe for humans," the woman—goddess?—told them. "Please, eat up." She studied her two guests. "You are human, aren't you?" she asked. "Not . . . something else?"

 _Who's afraid of who?_ Belle wondered. "Human," she said. "But, you're. . . ." she mimicked the woman's pause, ". . . . something else. Aren't you? Attis-Anari said you've lived her for centuries. Millennia."

The old woman nodded then leaned back as if that small gesture had exhausted her. "I appeared about your age when I came here. The Ursini could not even work bronze when I met them." She gave a weary sigh. "They made tools of copper, flint, obsidian. I taught them everything I could, but ages passed before they had anything you might call technology." She glanced at some of the wires and tubes hooked up to her. "It was even longer before they had anything that could help keep me alive."

"A Goa'uld sarcophagus," Belle said. Her hand shook slightly on the bowl of tea. She put it down and looked Cybele in the eye. "Were they ever able to make one?"

"You know of those?" Cybele said. She was a little surprised, nothing more. "No, they never built one. This body is dying, and there is nothing more they can do for it." She put down her own tea and sighed again, studying Belle and TJ. "My child, Attis-Anari, told me a bit about you. The Goa'uld do not rule your people, do they? You rule yourselves and have developed your own technologies."

"And we prefer it that way."

"Egeria," Cybele said. "Do you know that name?"

Egeria. Belle hadn't expected to hear her mentioned. "A Goa'uld queen. She believed in . . . symbiosis. That it was possible for her people to have willing hosts, to . . . share with the humans they possessed."

"Indeed. Egeria was a radical. She would have been executed if she were not a queen. But, a queen's life is one of the few things my kind hold sacred. A matter of biology. Those of us who can reproduce are too few. The need to keep them alive is written into our very being."

"You're a queen," Belle said.

The old woman smiled wistfully. "You sound like a judge passing sentence. Yes, I'm a queen. But, my children in this world die. They swim in the waters where they were spawned, blind, deaf, barely alive. If they take hosts—"

"They die," Belle said. "Attis-Anari told me. That must make life difficult for you."

"Egeria was my friend," Cybele said. "Her thoughts were radical, but I had some sympathy. I allowed my host times of freedom. I let her keep those she loved. I even protected them."

"Did you?" Belle thought of her father, willing to erase her whole mind, her memories and personality, to 'protect' her from Rum. "In legend, Attis was the name of Cybele's consort."

"Yes, my host's betrothed. I let her spend time with him. I even grew fond of him myself. Enough to name some of my children after him. It was hardly rebellion against the System Lords, what I did. But, it was enough when Egeria fell. I fled. I was captured. The System Lord who cornered me had been carrying out experiments with the gates. He threw me through one of them, and I found myself here.

"I'm not like the other lords," Cybele said. She sounded like she believed it. "Not anymore. To survive, I had to teach the Ursini, to help them lift themselves out of darkness. They are my children as much as Attis and his siblings. When this host dies, I will die with her. My Goa'uld children will follow soon after. But, I hoped to preserve the Ursini. The enemy who is coming for us will destroy this world, but I have done everything I can to help a few escape. You understand? I'm not like the System Lords. I care for my people."

Belle remembered Regina telling her how reasonable she was being, that she was _helping_ Belle when she imprisoned her. She remembered Hook pretending to be her friend when he broke into her cell, all so he could get her to betray Rum. "Is there a reason you want me to believe that?"

"Egeria was my friend, for all her madness. She would want me to explain this to you."

Belle balled her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. "Attis-Anari thinks I'm a goddess, Bellona, the Roman goddess of war."

"Does he? I am old. The difference between my host's mind and mine has faded over the years. The memories I hand onto my children blur. My host believed in such things. I suppose he does, too. Egeria would have wanted you to understand this, to give me your permission for what I'm about to do."

"You don't have it."

Cybele smiled wanly. "I didn't expect it. Egeria was always a dreamer. But, I wish you to understand, for her sake. You are a treasured slave, not a beast of burden. I will ride you as gently as I may." Her hand slipped over a button on her chair. A horde of Ursini flooded into the room.

TJ jumped up, shocked but ready to fight. The Ursini leveled their weapons at her, metal tubes that ended in sharp, needle points. Belle didn't know what they did—she was sure they Ursini wanted them both alive, two potential hosts instead of just one—but they might be willing to kill to protect their Great Mother.

They didn't point them at Belle. She was the chosen sacrifice in this little drama. They weren't giving her a choice between living and dying. Instead, they just piled on her, forcing her to her knees. She struggled, trying to break free. She remembered again when Regina captured her, forcing her into a small cage. She remembered being held down against the small cot in her cell as the guards clamped manacles around her wrists. Two Ursini reached out for her head, making her bow.

Belle knew about this. The Goa'uld didn't like to face their victims when they took them, didn't like to see the mix of horror and hate on the faces that were about to be their own.

Chitinous hands pulled her long hair away from her neck. She could hear TJ shouting at the Ursini to leave her alone. Then, Belle felt cold fingers caress the back of her neck. "Try not to be afraid," Cybele whispered.

The pain was sharp and quick, like the bite of a wild beast. Belle felt Cybele inside her, felt her curling into her thoughts, her mind, touching her memories. _Rumplestiltskin,_ Belle thought. It was a hope, a prayer, a whispered farewell. She felt Cybele reach out for the image in her mind. Curious. In her own, cruel way, compassionate.

 _Rumplestiltskin._ Memories, knowledge, _understanding_ of what that name meant flooded through the intruder in Belle's mind. She felt her mouth open. Cybele began to scream.


	3. Learning

"I don't get this," TJ had said to Belle—to the woman—the _Goa'uld_ —standing beside her in flowing, white robes. She managed (she thought) to keep the fear out of her voice. They were standing in front of the Stargate, just the two of them. The woman, Cybele (even knowing the truth, TJ had a hard time not thinking of her as Belle) had chosen to come alone. TJ didn't understand why. She only had a whole planet to back her up.

"Humility," the woman said, her eyes on the gate. "A beggar should be humble. And he is less likely to kill anyone who isn't here. I hope." She glanced at TJ. "He will see me here alone. He will see you alive and unharmed. If I am lucky, he may give me time to speak."

Which was what TJ didn't understand. "You're terrified. Why?" It wasn't supposed to be safe to push Goa'uld. They snuffed out human lives with less empathy than TJ showed for bacteria in the operating room.

But, that also meant that anything that frightened a Goa'uld this much was something she needed to know about.

"The Dark One," the woman said. "The one you call Rush. He will not forgive what we have done."

 _The Dark One? What did that mean? What did Cybele think Rush could do, anyway?_ "There are a lot of people who won't forgive Goa'uld for what they've done. What makes him special?"

The woman gave her a pitying look. That was something else Goa'uld weren't supposed to do. There was something in that look that was very like Belle, but there was something else, too. The woman was old—millennia old, if her story was true—and TJ felt the weight of all of those years as the woman looked at her as though she were an innocent child who was all too soon to learn the harsh truths of life. "The difference is that he can make us pay, all of us."

TJ would have asked more, but that was when the gate opened and Rush walked out.

He seemed to be working from the same script as Cybele. He'd come alone—TJ had no idea how Rush had talked Everett into that. He wasn't even being followed by a kino to transmit the meeting back to the ship.

Cybele knelt down on the ground, her face against the earth, arms spread out before her.

Rush stopped just a few inches from her hands, barely controlling his fury. If that hand hadn't also been Belle's, TJ thought he'd be breaking bones in it with his heel. When he spoke, his voice was flat and cold and managed to radiate more disgust than anything TJ had ever heard.

"You think that's going to work? Making _Belle_ grovel to me?"

Cybele sat up, though she continued to kneel and kept her eyes downcast. "Forgive me, lord. I have no other way to abase myself to you except in this body. Though I cannot abase myself enough, not after what I've done."

"No. You can't." He studied her a moment before lifting his hand. Cybele was _Goa'uld_. Alone and unarmed, TJ and Rush were no match for her—they were hardly a distraction. But, TJ saw the way Cybele shrank back from Rush and the murderous light in his eyes. She didn't understand how, but the scientist and the alien were both certain he would win this fight.

"Please, lord," Cybele said quickly. "A deal. I offer you a deal."

Rush's hand was still raised, but he didn't do . . . whatever it was he'd been about to do. "You got that from her."

Cybele nodded, still not looking at him. "The Dark One likes deals."

The Dark One. TJ still didn't understand that. But, she remembered what Cybele had said when she took over Belle—what she had screamed in terror.

 _I have killed us! I have killed us all! The Dark One is coming and he will destroy this world!_

She couldn't mean Rush. She _couldn't._

But, Rush seemed to understand what she meant. He said, "You only have one thing I want and you stole it. I don't make deals to get back what's mine."

"I have two things of my own to offer. Time. Power."

"I have those already."

"Not for you, Lord. For her." She looked up at him, meeting his eyes. "You know what I am, Lord. I have power after the manner of my kind. I have long life. I offer up both of these, gifts for this one you value. In return, I ask two things. Take your revenge on me and not my children, not the children of my blood and not on the Ursini, the children of my adoption. And, I beg you, save them from our enemies, from the drones who threaten this world. They—they threaten your people, too, I think. Please, let my children live."

He snorted. "You expect me to believe you care about the Ursini? And how, exactly, are you going to give those gifts to Belle? Am I just supposed to believe you'll sit back quietly and let her run things? I notice you've been doing all the talking since I got here."

"Would you believe the words are hers and not mine?"

"Oh, I don't have to believe anything. I'll know."

She nodded. "I understand. And I understand how you can be certain of this as well. The gifts I offer are based on my physical nature. My . . . control of her is based on my mind. You understand? You do not need one to have the other."

Rush still looked stony and cold, but the feeling TJ had had from the moment he showed up, that he was about to reenact what he'd done to the Lucian Alliance and leave corpses up and down the streets, eased. A little.

"That's quite an offer," he said softly. TJ shivered. Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe there were still corpses in the near future. "Belle, what do you think?"

His voice was gentle, but his words felt like a command. TJ felt something, a force moving past, as if Cybele were a fly and a giant had just leaned past to flick her out of the way.

It wasn't possible. Even the Tok'ra, who only took willing hosts and spent their whole lives trying to live as equals and symbionts, were supposed to be able to overpower their hosts if they wanted to. Goa'uld didn't get brushed aside by impatient scientists.

But, Cybele's face changed. There was still tension in her face but the fear was gone. TJ thought she recognized the light in her eyes. "Rum?" the woman (Belle?) said.

Rush's face changed, too. There was none of the coldness left, no killer light in his eyes. He reached out and cupped Belle's cheek, touching her as if she were the most precious thing in the world. "Do you want me to let her live, sweetheart?"

X

Belle was free of Cybele. Oh, she could still feel her there in the back of her mind; but the _weight_ of her, pressing down against Belle—against every thought and memory—was gone. She looked up and saw her husband—saw him with her own eyes without filtering through the Other.

"Rum?"

He smiled, reaching out and cupping her cheek. For a moment, she wanted to forget everything, Cybele, the Ursini, the danger she remembered from Cybele's mind, the Drones waiting to destroy this world—forget that TJ was standing right by her and watching everything—and throw herself into her husband's arms.

Rum looked at her as though he were reading her thoughts, but he shook his head slightly. _Not yet._ "Do you want me to let her live, Sweetheart?"

His voice was tender and gentle as he said it. She knew Rum. She knew how much he must be wanting to crush Cybele out of existence.

And Rum knew Belle. He knew how many times she had urged him to show mercy, even when it was hard for him. He would find a way to spare Cybele if she asked.

"I. . . ." Belle tried to find the words. She thought of the Ursini, who didn't just worship Cybele, they truly loved her. They saw her as the great mother who had raised them from darkness and who was fighting with the last of her strength to save them from their enemies.

She thought of the good she had glimpsed in her—and there _was_ good. Cybele's love for the Ursini was as real as theirs for her. She loved her children and grieved that she couldn't save them or give them real lives. Even her past hosts, they might have been less than slaves, brutally sacrificed for Cybele's own survival, but Cybele had an affection for them. By her own lights, she had tried to be kind. It might be a very small, cruel kindness, but it was more than nearly any others of her people gave. She had tried to teach her own children to give more—though, with the brief lives they had in their hosts and their weaker powers, equal sharing was the only hope they had for those lives to accomplish anything.

But, it meant something. It had to mean something.

Didn't it?

Belle tried to find some compassion, some forgiveness for the entity that had taken her over. But, all she could think of was the horror of Cybele flowing into her, taking everything, memories and feelings Belle hadn't even shared with Rum, invading every corner of her. She thought of the glimpses she had caught of Cybele's previous hosts, all of them just as brutally used.

The words died in her throat.

"Stop her, Rum. Please."

Belle saw the grief in his eyes (Rum always had the most expressive eyes). She might as well have told him everything Cybele had done to her, the _violation_ of having the Other in her mind and body. He lifted her hand, kissing the back of it.

"As you wish, Sweetheart."

He reached towards her, his hand held only a few inches from her mouth. He made a come-here gesture, like a man trying to summon a frightened child.

The _weight_ of Cybele inside her, pushed aside but still there, began to drain out of her. An image flitted through Belle's mind of a swollen wound finally being drained of its poison, the painful, burning pressure on the skin giving way as the filth was bled out of her.

X

Cybele came out of Belle as a long, white mist. At first, she looked like nothing more than breath on a cold day. But, she didn't dissipate, and the silvery-gray form in Rumplestiltskin's hands coalesced. Anyone who had seen a Goa'uld outside their host would recognize the snake-like form in his hands.

Lt. Johansen, gaping like a fish, seemed to be one of those people. "Rush—"

"Not now, Lieutenant," he said. The teacher in him, who had trained so many magic-users over the centuries (and heroes, too, not that the heroes always knew it), would have liked stop and explain. There were two ways, after all, to tear out a heart (and wouldn't the lieutenant love to learn _that_ ). One was gory and _very_ messy, leaving stains that were next to impossible to get out, even if you didn't favor silk shirts. The other wasn't. What was drawn out with magic was both more and less than that physical heart. It was the _idea_ of a heart, the strange jewel that held the life and core of a person.

What he held now in his hands was something similar. He held the essence of Cybele in a form that had its own kind of truth. This was the worm that burrowed in and ate men from the inside out, this was the ghost that had no flesh and blood except what it stole from others. It was frozen in this moment, unchanging, unfeeling, a thing for him to examine. He was a cruel man—right now, he _wanted_ to be a cruel man—but he knew that wasn't what Belle wanted. Or, if it was, the guilt of wanting and getting that would hurt her far more than Rumplestiltskin granting that particular wish.

This was also, he thought, a form he could easily work with. In his hands, Cybele was like mist and moonlight. The cloudy shape of her was also like stray tufts of wool. He could shape her as he pleased.

But, before he began, he took a moment to study her, feeling out along the strands of fate.

As Goa'uld went, Cybele wasn't so bad. She tried to be kind to her slaves.

But, they were still slaves. Worse than slaves. They had less say over their lives than the children the Duke of the Frontlands drove to their deaths against the Ogres.

Still, he looked at the threads. _What happens if I let you live?_ Nothing was clear—even in his own world, where magic had run so thick it was hard not to be drunk on it, it took work to see futures clearly. Especially when those futures touched on something near to him. When they touched on Bae—or Belle.

All he caught were feelings. There were no images to explain them. As he looked down roads where he let Cybele go, he felt sickness and horror. He thought of her and the crew of _Destiny_ , and the sick feeling was even worse.

 _Destiny_ held the only humans Cybele had encountered since her exile. She had hungry children starving for the lives hosts would bring them. Cybele herself, even if she were denied Belle, would want another body to live in. It was one thing to accept death when she had an angry Dark One staring her right in the face. It was another thing to accept it when he let here go and an alternative only a few light years away—and she had gates from the seed ship, now. He didn't think it would be that hard to find a way to come after them.

Still, he looked down other threads, threads where he kept this bargain—or some part of it—with Cybele, just to see if they were better. After all, he _wanted_ to kill her. And he was as hungry for the gift Cybele offered as she must have been when she saw Belle and knew she still had a chance at life. And wanting something that badly had a way of leading him into some of the worst mistakes of his life.

Life, he thought. Centuries of life for Belle regardless of what happened to him. That was what Cybele was offering. It would also give Belle magic of a sort, power to protect herself from Lucians and Nakai and the next Evil Queen who thought the Dark One's wife made an excellent chess piece.

All the same, he tried to listen to what his sight told him, not just what he wanted to believe. He tried not to blind himself to the dark, hidden traps that might be lying ahead.

No sick feelings plagued him, no sense of dread or regret. He thought, perhaps, he even felt happy—he even felt _hope._

If it was his sight, if he wasn't just feeling what he so desperately wanted to (and he was trying so hard to see the truth), this was the best option. His choice was made.

Once he had decided that, Cybele—the essence of Cybele—changed in his fingers, like mist, like fine wool. He began to twist and move the strands of her.

The Lieutenant was watching, of course. Staring, actually. She'd been on less technologically advanced worlds, but he didn't know if she'd ever seen anyone spin. His lip twisted. He knew many people on her world looked down on the humble crafts some still called "women's work," as if providing clothing, blankets—even simple things like the bandages the lieutenant used to treat the wounded—were worthless skills instead of things that often made the difference between life and death.

They could also be beautiful, he thought, in the hands of someone with the skill and desire to make them so. He looked at the strands, pulling out the gifts Cybele had offered, twisting into a thread as though a drop spindle were pulling them into shape beneath his fingers. Life. Safety. He could see them glittering in the small coil forming beneath his touch.

After a time, there was nothing left but Cybele herself.

He let that go, letting it dissipate, a last strand of mist on a sunny day, a puff of warm breath against the cold. It vanished and was gone.

He went back to Belle who was still kneeling on the ground, still looking tired and drained. He lifted her hand as he had when he'd kissed it moments before. But, this time, he lifted it, palm up, and placed the coil of thread he had spun there. "It's the price she offered," he told her. "Just that. She's gone. I promise." He hesitated. He wanted Belle to have this, the protection, the safety, the _life_ Cybele had offered. But, he needed to ask Belle. He tried to smile. It felt broken and half-hearted against his face. "No one decides your fate but you, Sweetheart. Will you take it?"

Belle looked at the thread, strands of a ghost. "Should I?"

"It's not her," he said. "And, the next time an Ursini tries to kidnap you, you can just blast him into next week."

That won a smile from her even if it looked nearly as broken as his own. "That's a good argument." She gave a quick, decisive nod; though he thought he saw uncertainty still in her eyes. He covered her palm with his own. The strands melted into Belle, becoming part of her, the vitality and power of a Goa'uld. The mind and the hungers that had driven it, those things he had thrown away.

Belle's hand closed tightly around his, her eyes glowing for a moment. "Rumplestiltskin. . . ."

"It will be all right, Sweetheart," he said, helping her up. "Give yourself time to adjust."

"The Ursini—the drones—Rum, you have to help them—"

"I keep my bargains, Belle. You know that. The danger will be taken care of." He looked over at TJ. "All the dangers. Lieutenant, what do you think of this little show? And what do you think I should do now you've seen it?"


End file.
